The
Solar Hearth, the home of the gods and the ever-radiant heart of the Õemag,
beats slowly. The Solar Hearth brightens to blinding brilliant at the
height of the heart's beat, and fades to darkness between the heart's
beat. This brightening and darkening divides day from night. Should this
heartbeat ever cease, the Shards would be lost, it is said. How the
heart of a dead god can continue to beat is a subject best left to
clerics of the Pentatra.

What are the
seasons?

The
Beneath's strength comes and goes. It grows strong in frustrated hunger,
challenges the light of Õemag,
and is finally broken. When the
Beneath is at the apex of its power, it sucks the warmth and life from
the Shards. Trees lose their leaves and snow falls. Cold winds blast up
from the depths, and wrap the Shards in a chill grip.

When
the Beneath fails to drain the life from the True Creation, Avasha's
mercy falls upon the Shards and life begins anew. New buds appear,
animals rise from hidden burrows, and the thinking races can turn their
attentions to bringing prosperity to their fields.

The
seasons are the visible sign of the endless struggle between the Beneath
and the legacy of Õemag.

What are the
stars?

Each
night, between the day-long heartbeats of the Solar Hearth, the gods
leave a sign that despite the darkness, they have not forgottenthe
faithful. From the dimming solar disc, bright points of light travel,
across the sky above all the Shards. These are the divine servants of
the gods, the Celestial Guardians who stand guard over the Shards when
night falls. Though only points of light to those below, they are
powerful servants of the gods, the Divine Army of the Solar Hearth. Some
call them stars, or angels, or celestials. As befits an army, there are
different ranks and formations of these sky-bound warriors, and
astrologers make it a point to know all the celestial names and their
standing in the ranks of the heavens. Each of these radiant guards has
an appointed place in the heavens, which he is forbidden to forsake.

Still,
the most devote of clerics, those beloved of the gods, can call upon these
divine sentinels, and pull them from the sky for a few moments. Few
calamities are so threatening that such a divine summoning is called for,
yet stories are told of the night the first Pentatra was destroyed: the
besieged clerics darkened the night sky as they called upon those divine
servants to protect them from the Beneath. This bought the Pentatra just
enough time to scourge the Beneath's dark heart and end the Second Rising,
though at the cost of all their lives.

One
celestial kept his post during that dark night to let those huddled in
darkness know that all was not lost: Onora, the First Star of Morning, the
Light of Hope. Onora, the celestial servant of Eimag and Avasha, brightens
slightly before the dawn. This begins the procession of the celestial
guardians back across the sky, to their rest in the Solar Hearth until the
next evening falls.

Where do water/animals/etc. come from?

Oêmag’s body and the endless Creation.

Oêmag
is the primal source for all things. He is the very essence of
Creation. Even in death, his body pours forth water from pure
springs, while plants proliferate in fertile areas.

The Dark Paths – the spread of Monsters and Evil.

The
last day of the year, the sun does not brighten. The Endless Night
begins, and for a full day, there is no sunlight. Many believe that
a new Rising will always begin during the Endless Night. To be
sure, evil beings and the undead are more powerful during the
Endless Night, but also to be considered are the Dark Paths.

During
the Endless Night, all the darkling depths of the earth, all the
labyrinthine tunnels that light never enters, all the hidden caverns
and subterranean reaches become as one. A cavern in the Underlands
might be entered, and a tunnel followed to an exit in Ozaan.
Creatures of darkness are often restless on the Endless Night, and
find their way to distant shards through the Dark Paths.

When
the portals of darkness open on this unhallowed day and all dark
places are joined, evil can spread from shard to shard, and those
who guard against the forces of the Beneath are doubly alert at this
time.

Goblin
tribes, the spawn of Madragat, and the undead often find their way through
the Dark Paths, as do many other things vile and unwholesome. It is believed
that the priests of Hastur, Madragat, and the Beneath can control the
manner in which the Dark Paths intersect, and thus know decide exactly where
a tunnel or passage will find egress.

Despite
this, sometimes common animals or even bold adventurers can travel in this
manner.

Many
tales can be heard of skysailors stranded on a shard far from civilization,
who waited until the Endless Night and dared to find passage home through
the Dark Paths.

Some
found their escape, some found death, and others are said to wander still,
driven mad by the terrors they have seen.

Wild
Shards

Most
shards travel a regular, circular route. Though the speeds of
individual shards may vary, very little cannot be predicted by a
trained navigator with the correct charts and an abacus.

There
are, occasionally, strange shards that appear amongst their
fellows from outside the known reaches. They sometimes settle into
a circuit like their brethren, though some wander without
direction or aim, rogue shards that cannot be second-guessed.

These
shards sometimes carry strange cargoes. On their surfaces might
flourish plants unseen for generations, or creatures unheard of by
even the long-lived ælven. More troubling are the ruins found on
such shards, left by cultures and races about whom nothing is
known. Some believe that some of these wild shards are the
remnants of the Thousand Things that Oêmag first made, and which
the Beneath either destroyed, stole, or chose to hide.

Regardless
of the truth, manx often settle on these shards when they can,
trusting (perhaps unwisely) in Marthayn to chart them an
interesting course.

Marthayn and the Festival of the Fickle Fool.

On
Marthayn's holy day, anything can happen. Usually on this day
there is at least one grandiose miracle somewhere in the shards to
let the thinking races know that Marthayn is still at work in the
world. Flights of green doves, plagues of monkeys falling from the
sky, singing locust swarms, and so forth are common. For some
reason, Marthayn seems to like using bizarre and unlikely animals
to act as his sign to the faithful, and these animals can be found
for years after their arrival, sometimes even giving rise to new
breeds or hybrid or creature. Occasionally, he will use other
forms of expression, such as storms of stinking rainbows, or
spontaneously growing tree groves that laugh, or bear blinking
eyeball fruit.